Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

The new moon at the time they had dug up the grave of the Mother Confessor had grown to a full moon and was now approaching its last quarter again, and yet nothing much had changed. A few days after digging up the body, Zedd had told Richard that he loved him and was sorry to have been so hard on him when maybe he should have found out a little more before saying the things he'd said. Zedd promised that they would figure out a way to get Richard's sword back and everything would be all right.

It might have been sincere, and it might have been true, but for Richard the hurt of such a personal failure was hard to put back into the bottle. He had not just disappointed and angered his grandfather; he had failed to prove his dream was in fact the truth. He had put everything he had into the effort. He had been certain and in the end he had only proved himself wrong.

Richard had only nodded to Zedd's words. Nicci didn't think it mattered much to him either way if Zedd had softened his viewpoint. He had reached the end of his ideas, his hopes, and his efforts. Nothing had helped him. After that night, the life had gone out of him.

Zedd had interrogated Cara and Nicci for hours that first night. Nicci had been stunned to hear from Cara what Shota had said about the beast becoming a blood beast because Nicci had inadvertently given it the measure of Richard's ancestral blood. She was horrified to learn that she had been responsible for intensifying the danger to Richard.

While astonished at how Nicci had accomplished saving Richard's life, Zedd had quietly assured her that had she not acted, Richard would most certainly have died right then and there. He said that she had given Richard a chance at life, and now they could work to solve the problem of the beast Jagang's Sisters had created, as well as Richard's strange delusions and the matter of recovering his sword. From what Shota had revealed about the beast, on top of what Nicci already knew, it didn't look to Nicci that they had much of a chance of success. She had no idea at all of how to even begin to destroy such a beast spawned of dark powers.

She had also been embarrassed to hear Cara telling about how Shota had revealed to Richard Cara's plan for Nicci to interest Richard romantically. Zedd, thankfully, had withheld any comments on that part of Cara's story.

That, among other things, had left Nicci feeling rather hopeless-and helpless. The Imperial Order was rampaging unchecked through the New World, the beast was stalking Richard, and he was not himself, to say the least.

In some ways, it reminded her of her dead attitude toward life, back before Richard. She had been taught that she had been born lucky in every way, and because she had ability it was her duty to devote herself to those in need. No matter how hard she worked, the needs always outpaced her ability to meet them, leaving her perpetually in debt to the ever worsening lives of others while her own life was not her own. Her feeling about what was happening now with the beast and Richard's delusions were different in almost every way, except they were the same in that they gave her that familiar feeling of hollow hopelessness.

Richard had spent the long days, since opening the grave and discovering the truth, off by himself-with the exception that Cara, after answering all of Zedd's tedious questions about everything she knew about what had happened with Shota, refused to leave Richard's side for any reason. Since Richard was in no mood to talk to anyone, Cara had become his silent shadow.

It was strange seeing the two of them together, totally at ease with each other even at such a time. It didn't seem to Nicci like the two of them even needed to speak, yet they managed, with a look, a slight shrug, or a nothing at all, to all the time understand each other.

Nicci felt like an unwelcome outsider to his misery and so she let him be. She remained as close as she could, so that she would be at hand should the beast attack, but she stayed out of his sight and left him to his solitude.